Welcome to the Cell Block: Ramblings from Ram
by StellarRequiem
Summary: Ram's perspective on life, death, fighting, confinement, and his fellow conscripts on the game grid. We begin with Tron's arrival, and we'll see familiar faces as well as a few OC conscripts throughout.
1. New Guy

The guy is unconscious when they drag him in. He's no small measure of dead weight to be hauling, either. He's solid, but strong solid, not fat solid, and looks like he put up one hell of a fight. There are blackened scorch marks all over him.

Kind of impressive, really. I know me; it would've taken half that many high-rez shocks to take me down. This guy is no actuarial program.

Lucky.

Well, in here, anyway.

So far as I can tell, though, surviving is as much about the will to do so as skill. Not that there isn't skill involved, but if you want to see another day more than the other guy, if you've got something to live for, then you're a hell of a lot more likely to make it through your first couple of matches despite the "standard, sub-standard" training.

Judging by how much misery this guy has apparently put himself through already, though, I don't think I'm reaching much in assuming that "something to live for" is the least of his problems.

I wonder what his name is . . . huh. He looks like he's got a history.

A lot of the guys who come through here, they don't have any armor to start out with. But he does. Most notably on his forearms. Sark's going to get a kick out of this one. That is, if he doesn't end up joining him.

Then again, for no reason whatsoever, I kind of get the feeling that the new guy would rather be dead join Sark. Just a feeling.

To my left, Prawnn is being ushered, complaining as usual, back into his own cell. He's been here since I arrived, captured in the same batch from yet another outside system. He's a noisy guy, but you make what friends in here that you can.

"How'd it go?" I ask, tearing my attention away from the still unconscious new guy. Prawnn shrugs, looking smug.

"I'm alive, aren't I? Not bad for accessory program, hah. It drives 'em nuts every time."

Weird fact about Prawnn: he's very proud of himself for pretty much everything he ever does, but no matter who prods him about it, he won't say what it is that he _used_ to do. All he'll say is that he was an accessory program at "Cal Tech" without ever specifying what he was an accessory _to_.

Cal Tech, by the way, is a university. I couldn't tell you what that is, really, but alright. He didn't know what an insurance company was either. Or an Actuarial program.

I get that a lot.

"What about you?" he asks, leaning his enormous frame up against the wall cattycorner to where I'm standing so that he can see me through our adjoining force field and laze all at once. Strength is really Prawnn's thing, not speed, stamina, or agility. He does a lot of lazing, as a general rule, whenever he's not out in the games.

Of course, it's not like I can judge too harshly. We all get pretty languid in here. And as much as I like to play it cool, the truth is that I think the only reason I "practice" with my identity disc so much is because it make me feel just slightly better about my own bored lounging. On the plus side, though, I'm getting pretty good with it.

"I haven't gone out today," I shrug in answer to his question. He makes a noncommittal noise in reply, but his bushy eyebrows fall low over his eyes as he squints at me.

"Why are you standin' over there, Ram?"

I may be looking at Prawnn, but I'm still inches away from the force field between my cell and the new guy's.

"We've got another one."

Prawnn's face lights up. I don't really see why, though. Sure, its plenty interesting to have a new face around here, but that yet another free program has been taken in doesn't really seem like celebratory stuff to me. Still, like I said, you make what friends you can in here, so I'm not exactly going to get after him about it. Friends keep you sane . . . and they give you an ally in the lightcycle races and in the tanks, too.

I hate the tanks. "Space Paranoids" is the technical title for the game, but that it involves being chased around by recognizers that fly over my head where I can't see them is really all that registers with me. I think I hate recognizers even more than I hate the tanks themselves, actually . . .

Prawnn is craning his neck... I couldn't tell you why. I know for a fact, being in an identical cell to his, that you can't see two cells over if the guy is lying down.

"He's unconscious," I explain, trying to get him to cut it out. If Prawnn keeps straining like that, he's going to fall headfirst into the force field. Balance isn't exactly his strong point.

"No kidding?" he says, falling back and reclining against the wall again.

I nod.

"Looks like he's been shocked about 20 times."

Prawnn whistles, I shrug.

"He's got his own armor, too."

"He's a fighter, then."

"I guess so. We can ask him when he wakes up."

Then, all of the sudden, like he's been cued, the guy groans from behind me. I whirl around. This time, I can't really blame Prawnn for craning his neck and standing on his toes:

20 shocks . . . and he's already up? The guy is different. Big time.

He reaches up from the floor with one hand and tugs himself up by leaning on one of those hard rectangular blocks they call a bed, grimacing the whole way.

Some guys are scared when they come in here. Some are weakened. But this guy? He just looks mad. Vengeful, almost.

It doesn't really suit his face. I couldn't say why, but he strikes me as young, and he's got almost delicate features: an evenly sloping and prominent nose, thin lips, dark blue eyes that could probably be pretty welcoming if he weren't so peeved, like he is right now. I have to admit, though, it's not a gaze you can look away from, he's got an air of authority all his own.

"Let me guess," he says flatly as he pulls himself up and sees me, "I'm on the game grid."

"Nope," Prawnn says from behind me boisterously before I can reply, "the holding block _for_ the game grid." I wince. The new guy is pretty clearly not in the mood for Prawnn's sense of humor, and he glares over my shoulder to the next cell down with narrowed eyes, as if he can't quite decide if he wants to acknowledge Prawnn's existence from this point out, before looking back to me.

"How long was I out?"

"Uhh..." I don't think this guy knows what fear is. Or how to take it easy. He's efficient, and so . . . blunt. No semantics. No small talk. No actual concern, just tactical interest.

"Not very long. A couple of nanos and however long it took them to drag you in here."

His expression sets into another mask of irritation when I say this, but his eyes are dull, anything but amused, almost... bored.

"Not very nice about that, are they?" he says, and finally, a half smile flicks up the very corner of his mouth. I grin back.

"Man, you could have the disc off my back if you showed me one thing they _were_ nice about..." I laugh, "Oh, and, welcome to the cell block. I'm Ram."

"Tron," he says. And that's how it starts.


	2. Tron: Instigator

I hate tanks. I hate Tanks. I hate Tanks. . . .

I have to keep reminding myself how much worse it can be. If I think about the tanks, the lightcycles don't seem so bad. Not that they are, really. . . I'd love this thing if I were driving it anywhere but here. User or no user, I'm the first to admit that I've got a few words for whoever invented this game . . .

I mean, for one thing, the premise aside, what's up with the sound effects? I don't need to be beeped at to know I've just derezzed someone. I think the sound of that guy screaming is plenty.

But . . . the thing is, I see as I glance over my shoulder, that the scream didn't actually come from the guy tailing me, but from, well . . . nowhere. I don't know where he was, and as I cut through the maze, just waiting to find a light wall around the next corner, I can't see who it was who got him, either.

I just hope it wasn't one of ours. We've already lost at least one: a brand new guy who moved into the other cell next to Tron.

That's how it goes in here sometimes. We lose people.

Here and now, however, I need to figure out if my remaining teammate was the one who made that scream.

Then again . . . maybe I _don't_ need to worry about it. Not with the way Tron plays. Besides, he doesn't strike me as a screamer. He _must_ be alive.

So, I wonder where he went. . .

I dont have much time to think about it. There's a light wall looming up in front of me as I take the next corner, and here in the maze, there's nowhere to turn.

I'm done for.

I'm just thinking this when a sort of whooping yell fills my ears from the speaker on the cycle's control panel. The blue light wall in front of me comes down, its driver is derezzed.

I think I found Tron. . .

Sure enough, as I fly out of the maze once again, his gold cycle pulls up beside mine.

"I wondered where you'd gotten to," he says, his voice coming in over the speaker that's installed in all the cycles.

Teamwork is encouraged on the lightcycle grid, you see. Or, should I say, "You live and die by your team on the lightcycle grid." Here's a speaker: you may as well talk now, because if you lose, you'll all be getting slaughtered together.

That's how the games go.

Glancing over at him through the side window of the cycle, however, I can see that Tron isn't hating them to the same degree that I am. I don't think it's that he likes derezzing anyone, really, but that he likes the competition. Or, maybe it just gives him something to focus on, I don't know.

I _do _know that he'll enjoy almost anything if it means getting him out of his cell, though. That much is easy to see.

Tron's a little weird that way. He stands there all off-shift without moving, and then comes out onto the grid and tears the place apart. He goes around with this intent look on his face that he's always got, but then there will be something about his mouth that's determined, but almost happy . . . he likes it. He just does.

I'm watching him still as he peels off, accelerating away from me with the last of our competitors on his tail.

I swear, he's gonna hit that wall.

But he doesn't. At the last possible second, just when he knows that the other guy is going to bail out, he turns left twice, and cuts the competitor off as he tries to turn away with a neat, three-sided rectangle of light.

The guy's light wall derezzed as he did. Now it's just me, Tron, and an open grid as the ceiling goes black above us. "Game over."

We derezz our cycles and wait for a squad of guards to come pick us up. I look to Tron, ready to say something to him about, well, what an anomaly he is, or just "good game" or something . . . but he's busy staring straight up and over the wall of the grid to where commander Sark's control center overlooks us.

It's as if he's challenging the guy. He's got that look on his face again.

I glance back and forth between the glow of controls that betrays the game's overseer and Tron. I can only imagine what my face must look like. I have no idea how the hell I'm supposed to be reacting to the tension of Tron's defiance.

The thing is, though, that I kinda like that defiance. I like the insults Tron's throwing around just by making that face, by just not caring. He may be a little glitchy, standing up to Sark this way, but it's kind of inspiring anyway. Brave is brave, No matter how many bugs he's probably got. He kinda makes _me_ want to start glaring, too.

. . . By the Users, this guy is going to get me into_ so_ much trouble one of these days. I can see it now.

Still, I can't help but be a little fascinated by the way he's still staring right into the distant light of the control center like that.

And then, he lifts one hand, and reaches over his head. He doesn't flinch, doesn't even stop to think about it . . . he pulls his disc out and raises it up above him, raises it as high as it'll go.

It hangs there for an instant, a single pulse of energy running through it before he lowers again. There is a long moment of silence, Tron holding his weapon against his chest and staring down Sark's lurking figure with the bridge of his nose crumpled and his eyebrows furrowed together, eyes pulsing and burning. His thin mouth is set in a hard line.

In reply, the light in the control center simply switches off.

I've got to hand it to Tron: He knows how to pick a fight.


	3. A Nasty Prediction

At first, I thought Prawnn was just oblivious, but the more time I spend smashed between the two of them, the more I realize that he _tries_ to drive Tron up the wall. He thinks he oughtta lighten up.

I'm not really sure how he calculates irritating him will do that. All I know is that I'm stuck in the middle, day in and day out.

Tron usually tries to ignore him. But of course, nobody can ignore a guy like Prawnn for very long. His size alone makes him a distraction. Tron usually ends up spitting occasional, two or three word, retorts over my head at him instead.

Tron cracks me up, however much respect I may have for him. He just seems so professional, so morbidly reserved until he opens his mouth . . . But he always surprises me. He's got more of a sense of humor than I expected, and even stranger, he doesn't seem to plan it. When he does talk, he just fires off whatever is on his mind, however blunt. He's got the filtration capacity of a bit.

I really do think it's kinda hilarious. I also think Prawnn would agree.

The best part about Tron, though, is how he talks to Sark. The commander comes down once every five milicycles or so to try and break him, and every time, he ends up with some taunt or another from Tron, and is otherwise ignored for the remainder of his visit. My personal favorite quote from one of these sessions involved Tron looking distractedly at everything in sight _but_ Sark, and then, when the commander was mid sentence, he suddenly stopped, looked right at him with this twisted, irritated, contemplative expression, and said:

"Are you leaving soon? Cause' the view here is ugly enough _without_ your face in it."

Sark's expression absolutely flattened, his eyes filling with rage and his lips presses together so firmly that they practically disappeared back into his mouth, but he couldn't say a word. He just stood there and fumed, looking so stupid that I almost bit through the back of my hand trying to keep from laughing.

Prawnn, a little bolder than myself, took it a step further. He leaned as close to the force field as he could, and shouted:

"I'll second what he said," at which point Sark turned on his heel and stomped away.

That was one of those times in which he and Tron were on the same side. Sometimes, they do that, despite Prawnn's pestering . . .

Aw hell, what am I saying? In the end, we're always on the same side. All of us. Always. We're conscripts. We stick together down here.

_. . . Except in the games._

No. No no no.

I try to shove the thought away, but I can't. I can't get rid of it. It keeps flying around my head like a bit, chasing me down like one of those damned recognizers.

One of these days, Sark is going to get back at Tron. I may have just figured out how.

_Oh, in the name of the Users . . ._

I just hope I'm wrong.


End file.
